Bovington in Dorset will be the venue for the penultimate
round of the Britpart MSA British Cross Country Championship next weekend and a
good result for Martin Cox could see him win the title.
Cox presently heads the championship table on 321 points
having taken two victories so far this year. Second to fifth place are separated
by just 12 points. Cox’s nearest challenger is Ryan Cooke who has overcome
several issues with his car to lie in second place on 273 points. Two points
behind is Jason Sharpe who is having a fine BCCC debut year in his Isuzu D-Max.
A consistent season in his Bowler Tomcat sees Richard Green
in fourth on 267 while Mark Jacques is
fifth on 261 after stepping up from the Trophy championship last year.
“We’ve had a good season so far,” said Jacques. “We finished
fifth at the last BCCC round in Radnor but the weekend before that we used the
car on the Welsh Hill Rally where we finished 6th overall so it had
quite a battering, including doing the last stage with a collapsed wheel
bearing.”
“We’ll have new axles and revised suspension geometry for
Bovington. We’re also planning on having a flat-shift fitted which will
hopefully be ready in time.”
The race for the Freelander Challenge title is close with
the Race2Recovery team leading the championship on 124 points, despite heavily
rolling their car at the last round. Ian Linford in the Team Sheepie car is in
second place on 118 points. Linford and navigator Demelza Scholes have been
busy repairing the car following a broken cambelt in Radnor.
Scholes commented: “The engine has been rebuilt after the
cambelt incident, the car has also been fitted with new front springs to try
and help with the rougher sections of the courses. We’ve also managed to fit in
a magazine photoshoot with the car and crew!”
The Clubman entry list is expected to feature the Insanity Racing Tornado of Jon Damrel and the Milner of Andi Skelley.
The event starts on Saturday at 10am with a full day of
competition. Day two starts at 9am with the final run taking place early on
Sunday afternoon. As the venue is an MoD site the landowner has specified that no
spectators will be permitted, the access gate will be manned to enforce this.
